26 Subway Trouble – English Language Bits

Match these words with their meanings below.

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closed off – board (verb) – worse – commute – resolve – shuttle – rush hour – maintenance – eventually

opposite of better –

to find a way of dealing with a problem or difficulty –

the time of day when roads, streets, and transit are most full because people are traveling to/from school and work –

opposite to open –

regular travel to and from work –

to get on a bus or plane (formal) –

a bus that replaces subway service in Toronto –

after a long time, after many things happened –

work that is necessary to keep something in good condition –

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Fill in the missing words in the text. You can type them or copy & paste them. You can check your answers by listening or by clicking Submit at the end.

closed off – board (verb) – worse – commute – resolved – shuttle – rush hour – maintenance – eventually

Matt: How about you, Ralph? Have you had any problems?
Ralph: I have had a few, but one thing that I’ve noticed recently is my wife needs to go downtown on the weekends on a Saturday afternoon, and there’s a lot of that takes place on the subway lines and quite often, every second weekend almost, the subway is not running between certain stations.

So she has to take a bus downtown or she has to take a bus to a station that is after the section in order to get downtown.

Matt: Yeah, those shuttle buses… At least she knows it’s going to happen, right? When there’s a shuttle bus on the weekends… But sometimes it happens in the middle of the .
Ralph: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had that recently happen to me. So on the way to work…
Kimberley: What did you do?

Ralph: Yeah. We arrived at a station and they said, “This train is out of service. Do not board this train.” They said to the people on the platform… “This train is out of service. Do not this train.” And they told everybody to get off the train and wait for the next train. And they said this train will be going back South. We were planning to go North, but they said this train will be going back South, everybody get off the train. So we went onto the platform and we just waited there.

Matt: You didn’t take a shuttle bus?
Ralph: They did not provide shuttle buses at that point. They were just waiting for this train to move off and it moved off. And the new train arrived in the station. But you know, ten minutes in the morning…

Kimberley: It is a lot…
Ralph: … can make a big difference to your connections and to getting to work on time.
Ralph: Have you ever been in a more serious kind of situation?
Matt: Ah, I think it was earlier this year or maybe last year, there was a fire at Eglinton station during the rush hour …

Matt: …and so the subway was out of service for a long time. They provided buses, but of course one bus is much smaller than one subway train.
Matt: So I had to wait, I think it was the 7th or 8th bus that came by, I finally got on. It was completely packed…
Kimberley: Of course.

Matt: …and so it took me I think an extra 40 or 45 minutes to get to work.
Ralph: Oh, my trick is to… Actually, I never take the shuttle buses, yeah.
Matt: Really?
Kimberley: How do you get where you’re going?
Ralph: Well, because when you think about it… They tell you that there are shuttle buses at street level, and everybody moves up the stairs and goes up to the street. But if you think about it, it’s gonna take them, you know, a good 15 or 20 minutes to get the buses there in the 1st place. By that time, maybe the problem down below will be .

Ralph: So my trick is just wait, like 20 minutes. If the problem’s not resolved in 20 minutes, then I’ll go up and take the shuttle bus, but I’m not gonna go upstairs and wait with a million people.
Matt: Yeah, it’s always so many people.
Kimberley: That’s so smart! I’ll try that next time.
Ralph: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: Hopefully there won’t be any, yeah.
Ralph: Hopefully there won’t be a next time.
Matt: Hopefully not.
Ralph: And to be fair, I mean, the TTC gets me where I want to go most of the time, and compared to some other places where I’ve lived, I’m pretty happy with the service. It could be a lot .
Kimberley: It could, and I feel like they’re doing a good job with so many people, trying to get so many people around, regardless, I think you’re right, compared to other places, we have a pretty good system.
Matt: It’s easy to remember the times that it goes wrong, but yeah, most of the time I get to work on time with no issues. So really, I shouldn’t complain.

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These questions can help you practice speaking or writing.

About the listening:

Why can parts of the subway be closed on the weekend sometimes?

What can commuters use instead of the subway?

How often does this closure happen?

What message can you sometimes hear on the subway when there is a problem?

At what time of the day can this be especially disruptive?

How do they try to replace the subway service?

Why can this be ineffective?

What kind of problem did Matt once experience while on the subway?

How much was his trip delayed?

How does Ralph respond to announcements about shuttle buses?

What do the Torontonians think about the quality of their public transit?

What about you?

How often do you have delays on your way to school or work?

Why do these delays happen? Are you always told the reason for the delay?

How easy/difficult is your commute overall?

When you first moved to the place where you live now, were you ever confused about transit?

Do you still get confused sometimes? Explain.

Do you think good communication about delays is important? Why or why not? How could they improve it?

Have you ever gotten on the wrong bus, train or streetcar? How did it happen? What happened next? What did you do?

When/how often should the subway go out of service for maintenance?

Compare the TTC to public transit in your hometown or another city you have lived in. What is similar? What is different?

Find the best sentence for each of these words.

You can type the words or copy & paste them. Check your answers by clicking Submit at the end.

closed off – board (verb) – worse – commute – resolved – shuttle – rush hour – maintenance – eventually

The conflict was by negotiations.

A common Toronto is probably about one hour each way.

Building superintendents are responsible for the of the apartment buildings.

Passengers were waiting to .

They re-opened the station, but it was a tough morning for thousands of commuters.

If the pain gets , you should see a doctor.

They got stuck in the heavy traffic.

Part of the highway will be for maintenance work this weekend.

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#26 Subway Trouble - Intermediate (CLB 5-6)